Watch: Four Interviews That Chart David Bowie's Changing Relationship With Drugs

Watch: Four Interviews That Chart David Bowie’s Changing Relationship With Drugs

The late David Bowie struggled with addictions to cocaine and alcohol during the first half of his career. But one of the endlessly inventive artist’s many famed transformations saw him adopting a sober lifestyle in later years. These four TV interviews chronicle the evolution of the Starman’s relationship with drugs.

1974: David Bowie ostensibly coked up on the Dick Cavett Show

A rail-thin David Bowie sniffs and acts erratically throughout this interview.

1997: Bowie looking back on his experiences with drugs

“Somehow or other I went through a series of survivals and crawled out of it all,” Bowie says. He goes on to impart some advice about substances to his son.

And later that year, Bowie jokes that he can’t remember the ’70s because he was addicted to… “milk.”

1999: Talking about alcoholism and sobriety

“It would kill me if I started again! I’m an alcoholic, so it would be a kiss of death for me to start drinking again,” says Bowie. “My relationships with my friends, my family, everybody around me have been so good and have been for so many years now, I wouldn’t do anything to destroy that again.”